This year’s
results point toward the increased strategic role that open source software (OSS)
has in today’s enterprises, the crucial function OSS plays in developing new
technologies, the growth of first-time developers within the OSS community, and
the impact it has on daily life.

According to
Lou Shipley, President and CEO, Black Duck. “Open source has proven its quality
and security, and reached a point of widespread democratization and
proliferation.

In
particular, the survey revealed the three industries expected to be impacted
most by OSS are Education (76%), Government (67%), and Healthcare (45%). Survey respondents
further reported that the top ten areas where OSS will impact our everyday
lives include:

Also, 56% of
corporations expect to contribute to more open source projects in 2014,
signaling a change in the way enterprises view open source. When asked why they
engaged with OSS communities, cost reduction was still the top response (61%),
but many corporations (45%) responded that they also did so to gain a competitive
advantage.

The survey
shows enterprises now organizing to contribute back more actively; as they
realize the importance of open source innovation to jumpstart careers and
kickstart projects,” said Michael Skok, general partner at North Bridge Venture
Partners. "Further, more new areas like the Internet of Things (IoT),
which requires interoperability and extensibility, can only be met by open
source initiatives, hence the emergence of new communities such as the AllSeen
Alliance."

Additional
Finding

72 percent of respondents chose
to use OSS because it provides stronger security than proprietary
solutions.

Building upon this, 80 percent
of respondents reported choosing open source because of its quality over
proprietary alternatives.

68 percent of respondents said
that OSS helped improve efficiency and lower costs

55 percent also indicated that
OSS helped create new products and services

50 percent of enterprises
report openly contributing to and adopting open source.